MY ARMS, YOUR HEARSE

I wanted to take this chance to write about my favorite album of all time: My Arms Your Hearse by Opeth. The title derives from a lyric from an obscure psychedelic folk album from the 70's called First Utterance by Comus. In a complete terrifying abyss of a song called 'Drip Drip,' the vocalist utters the line 'As I carry you to your grave, my arms your hearse.' This album came out in 1998 and it's in the genre of progressive death metal. This style of music certainly isn't for everyone, and it's not necessarily even going to be an easy listen for those who already have a foot in the door with the genre. But I have a vast interest in extreme and abstract forms of music, and I think the harsh vocals you find in this style of music can be best summarized with this analogy. If you want to make a guitar sound heavier, you add distortion to it. I see harsh vocals as the vocal equivalent of distorting a guitar to make it sound heavier and give it some dirty grit. The goal of the genre is to simply make the most evil sounding music that one can conjure up, and I think they reliably achieve this. What I love most about Opeth is that the vocalist uses his entire range and will often alternate between these guttural, inhuman sounding growls, and very melodic and emotive sounding clean vocals. It's this stark contrast in their music that really draws me in and paints a vivid auditory picture. My Arms Your Hearse is a concept album, many of the tracks segue directly into one another and the last lyric of every song is the title of the following song. The recording quality can be a little muddy and it doesn't render the most clarity. But I think these imperfections give the album some character and texture, the sound is very full considering the resources they had at their disposal.

The album opens with 'Prologue' which is supposed to represent the main character's death. It's a short ambient introductory track that's just simple bittersweet piano chords and rain sounds. 'April Ethereal' is an emotional goliath of a song with high peaks and valleys throughout. This song recounts the man's ghost returning home to visit his widowed wife and being enraged to find that upon his return, there's another man in the house comforting her. The very first lyrics spoken on the album describe this scene 'it was me peering through the looking glass.' She looks at him, but looks right through him, unaware of his presence. In the following song 'When,' he realizes the bond between him and his former lover is fractured, in the final stretch of the song he is stricken by grief from this discovery. So in his anguish, he makes his presence known to the two, this is 'The Amen Corner.' In this song, he says to her 'And even though you believe that I am shackled within death, memories are tainted with paleness.' This is expanded upon in the next song: 'Demon of the Fall,' where he haunts and terrorizes her until they eventually meet face to face and he comes to the humiliating realization that she isn't in love with him anymore. In the final passage of this song, the main character talks about fleeing from this inconceivable realization, ending on the line 'Just one second, and I was left with nothing' that day came to an end, and she had lost me in her credence.' Not only do I see this track as a lyrical high point of the album, but I also see it as a masterful display of songwriting. The ending of this song is only more enhanced by how relentless and agressive the first half is in contrast to the hopeless fleeting closing minutes.

The following song 'Credence,' features only clean vocals, and it's probably the most intimate sounding track on the album. The man realizes how blinded by rage he was in the preceding song while lurking around within the shadows of his former home. He's overcome with feelings of guilt as he slowly comes to terms with the fact that he has no chance of reclaiming her love. In the final lyrical song of the album 'Karma,' the man returns to the forest and accepts his death, realizing the living world has nothing more for him. The imagery in this song is incredibly lucid and graphic as it describes his entire world freezing over into a barren wasteland devoid of any life or substance. The final words on this album are: 'draped within a fate I could not change, and always welcoming winter's epilogue.' That brings the listener into the final minutes of the album in the aptly titled 'Epilogue.' It's a heart wrenching instrumental that properly sets the despairing scene as the main character experiences somewhat of a second death, but I suppose this time with all his loose ends tied up.

This album takes you to a very dark place, and the way it's cohesively strung together really blows me away. It punches me straight in the gut without failure every time I hear it, but there's even more subtle symbolism to it. You see, the main character goes through the classic five stages of grief, and there's an emphasis on the passage of time throughout the album and the healing and clarity that comes from such. The four seasons are mentioned throughout the lyrics of some of the key songs. April Ethereal represents the spring, the Amen Corner is summer, Demon of the Fall is Autumn, and Karma is the winter which closes the season cycle and also happens to be the point in the story where the man puts himself to rest. My Arms Your Hearse is the story of a man grappling with his understandings and misunderstandings, and feeling like it's him against the world. But truly, there's nothing for the living to be against. These are just a handful of the reasons why this is my favorite album ever made.